Monster out muscles Bluff Cup field

He’s the biggest harness racing horse around and today Deny Everything (A Rocknroll Dance) used his size and heart to beat a small field in the $15,000 South Port Bluff Cup at Ascot Park.

His health issues over four seasons are well documented and today’s success is testament to his owner Damion Love and his former trainer Mark Jones.

“He was up at Mark’s and he wasn’t able to put the work into him on his track. He spoke to Damion and they decided to try the beach, so I put my hand up,” said Mike Love (Damion’s brother) who trains the horse at Westwood Beach near Dunedin with Graeme Anderson.

The partnership have only had the eight year old gelding for a couple of months and he had his first start for the barn ten days ago at Winton.

“It was kind of like a trial because we’d missed a trial. He needed that race last week to top him off for today.”

Today driver Blair Orange settled Deny Everything three back on the fence. Stablemates South Seas Rock and Jordy became separated early from the leading trio and had to use a bit of gas to tag onto the field. In the winning of the race, Orange applied more pressure on the chasing pair when he took Deny Everything to the lead with a lap to run. Although Step It Up A Notch proved a stern challenge at the end of the 2700 metre trip, Deny Everything held on to win his eighth race in just twenty nine starts.

“We’ll never see the best in him but he’s still competitive in these kinds of races.”

DENY EVERYTHING REPLAY

https://youtu.be/gSJMaKb8Uc0?si=-x19qTShSPCdB_pq

Love says Deny Everything loves his new beach environment.

“He goes down there with his eyes popping out of his head every day. Nature changes everything all the time. He’s the biggest horse I have trained and he’s pretty lazy. We gave him a bit of work when he first arrived because we knew Mark wasn’t able to give him that. Then we backed off him. His leg is pretty ugly to look at but it’s been like that for a long time and it doesn’t seem to worry him.”

Love says although the beach work is great for older horses the training partnership misses not having Forbury Park on its doorstep for their younger stock.

“Graeme buys a lot of young horses and you’d always be in to Forbury to educate them but now we have to send them away which is a bit of a shame.”

For complete race results, click here.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink